The Hindu : Badal's workshop, petrol pump searched

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 05, 2003

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Badal's workshop, petrol pump searched

By Our Staff Correspondent

CHANDIGARH JULY 4. While the sleuths of Punjab's Vigilance Bureau searched yet another property belonging to the family of the former Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal, in a disproportionate assets case today, BJP leaders met the Governor and sought his intervention to stop "misuse" of official machinery "to carry out political vendetta".

The search on Friday comes hot on the heels of the rebuke by the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, on Thursday. The premises of a vehicle workshop and petrol pump of the Badal family in Killianwali village of Muktsar district were searched today. While the officials took down details of the buildings, after the end of the almost eight-hour operation, they handed over a certificate that nothing illegal had been recovered from the premises. However, a team member was quoted as saying unofficially that they had "gained something" during the search.

In a related development, a court in Kharar town, near here, where the Vigilance Bureau had filed the case, granted permission to the investigating agency to record the search, of the premises owned by the Badal family, on a video film.

Meanwhile, the BJP delegation urged the Governor, O.P. Verma, to rein in the State Government. The president of the State unit of the BJP, Brij Lal Rinwa, told newsmen that the party would launch a sustained agitation to seek the dismissal of the Capt. Amarinder Singh Government if the situation aggravates further.

Mr. Rinwa denied that the BJP had left the alliance partner, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), to fend for itself in face of the pressure from the Congress Government. He listed various occasions when the BJP had in fact taken the lead over the Akalis to protest the highhandedness of the State Government.

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